Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-08-27

HE time IS coming when regions now
 regarded as worthless will De the most
 prized. for small farming especially. In
 the first place some 9s to 99 per cent of
 all the vegetable growth comes from the
 air, Not one farmer in 6 thousand osn
 get this into his head. When the far
 mer puts manure on his ground or when
 he contemplstes the deep rich black
 mould he actually believes that this ma.
 nure and soil goes up into the plant.
 Whereas the soil serves but as a cover
 ing to seed and root and gives forth an
 invisible per cent of chemical such as
 ammonia, phosphate, etc. The whole
 groEth comes from the air and the
 waters deposited by the air. In truth
 the vegetable whether it be a tree, s
 blade of grass or grain may be regarded
 az .elegrsphic battery with posts and
 wires. Anyone who knows how the tel
 egrsph is used and works will readily
 understand. The battery of zinc and
 copper IS ferhlized by scid water
 and the magnetic currents begin to
 flow. Now the roots of vegetation are
 similarly fertilized by waters which con- tain the chemicals they have absorbed
 from rocks, manures, esrths and atmos-
 phere. The little rooilets forthwith be-
 gin to consume and appropriate them
 under the stimulus of an electric life current that flows from root to upper end All this IS well known to the students and professors of science that
 10 them it sounds flat to repeat it.
 If l am not exactly right I am near enough for all practical purposes.
 In Europe great cisterns have been made and cemented, or great vessels set in
 the earth, seeds planted in the earth de- posted in the vessels and water and mineral fertilizers. etc, supplied. The earth has been weighed to the most ex- act ounce. After many years O; gather ing fruits, it has been found that the trees grown and their products amount ed to thousands of pounds and yet not one ounce of the earth has been consun- edit weighing same as when first put in. ! The tree and fruit have been known tosx- ceed the weight of the earth in ihe mon- ster vessels by thousand of pounds. An, 1 Whence came the growth? Simply the tree or plant is 6 chemical lsbrstory I taking up those invisible elements | that constitute all the visible tangible things We are familiar with in the re- quired quantity. We do not see the air yet it is composed of the same elements l that constitute water. earth, etc.. but ID different proportions. Thus two of one and three of another and one of third | make one ithing; if you take one from the three the substance you are eIsrnin- ing becomes something totally different. | Air IS composed of certain elements. and If you make 8 very slight change | you have water.
 The object of this article IS to convince people who live In such regions as Ari- zons that the absence of deep, fertile | soil IS DO objection to the most success 'ul cultivation,
 All you need IS s sufficient incline and sn occasional rain or snos fall. Cut fitch across so as to catch all the water that runs above. Fill this with rocks, ore, slsg or brick bats. This will hold the water and allow it 10 slowly pe1co- lste under the soil below. Be sure there IS no hole or passage by which the wa ters may leak away and be lost. The waters that run into this dyke become | fairly saturated with those chemicals essential to vegetable life and the most worthless clays becomeilike rich mould | under their action. There are many who | say that one acre thus sub-irrigated is worth twenty fertile. ordinary acree. This is no mere theory, remember, but has been tried for many years. The great effect the writer looks for in the | future is the complete change of climate | when for hundreds of miles on these plains and mountains all the farms will be sub-irrigsted, the air consequently | saturated with moisture. If man IS to successfully occupy the earth as blow
 man he must put stop to She fearful | waste he causes by letting the rains and melting snOws run of into the riv- CTS thus laden with the surface soils l and chemicals. But it seems impossi- ble to get united action an anything l of the kind in our country; as witness | the vain efforts to even check the des- truction of our forests of which only l some 20 years supply is now left In that time there will not be tree to sup ply the annual demand, So long as there is abundance of lumber, who cares for the source of supply? Like the i'm provident householder who was warn ed that the flour barrel was get ting empty, we say, "Never mind! there is plenty of bread on the table" But drought and want will soon force us to | do something.
 To compel the rains snd snoEs to pass | under the soil and come forth again into l the atmos phere near where they fell ID | inc form of vegetation and vapors, is I the grand idea. When we behold the | effect of this plan on 6 forty acre | traot. it's almost miraculous effects, We | are left to imagine results when the sys- tenn is employed over millions of acres on these dry platesus west of the Mis- souri river. But it will require woD- derful amount of writing and teaching | betore much will be effected.